About the Book
Originally written in Ottoman Turkish, these memoirs offer a rare window into the forgotten world of the Jewish community in the borderlands of Persia and the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 20th century.
The author’s journey begins in a quiet town in the Salmas district, near Lake Urmia in northwestern Persia (Iran). As regional tensions and the decline of empires unfold on the eve of World War I, the family and the local Jewish community are drawn into an arduous ordeal. Their path leads them from their ancestral home in Persia, through hardship and displacement across Eastern Turkey, on to Istanbul, and ultimately to the heartfelt immigration of the entire family to the Land of Israel.